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Monday, April 06, 2015

Interactions and community

The delightful writer/podcaster behind A Playful Day has come up with a new blogging challenge for April that is all about loving your blog. Since I am certainly guilty of leaving my blog unloved over the last year or so, I thought I'd use this opportunity to try and jumpstart some creativity etc etc.

Interactions and community is the theme for this week. I almost didn't participate this week because I thought, what can I say about community that everyone else on the internet won't already have said? But then I thought, this is about me getting out of a blogging rut, and maybe being more introspective that usual and posting about things I don't normally post about is a way to attempt that. It doesn't have to be about being ground-breakingly original. (Hopefully not, anyway.) So. Apologies if you've heard this all before.

Like many knitters today, most of my experiences with the knitting/crafting community happen via the internet. Ravelry is awesome, etc etc - I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be an obsessive knitter without it, because it is an excellent information resource as well as being an interesting community. I've been fortunate to make friends through Ravelry that I never would have met otherwise, and these people have enriched my knitting life as well as my personal life.

Sounds a bit too sentimental? Well, I should probably also mention that the first real-life friends I made when I moved countries were in the knitting group I joined. (A knitting group I found out about on Ravelry, obviously). How's that for sentimental? It's not the only knitting group in town, and I did try a few, but this is the one that I felt like I fit into immediately. Even though we've had to change our venue several times over the years, and membership is fluid, it's the heart of my knitting community. It means that knitting isn't always a solitary activity for me any more, and we all benefit from tips and tricks in addition to chat.

And cake - must not forget cake.

(I meant to take a picture at our last meeting, but I was distracted by knitting and eating cake, so you'll just have to imagine.)

6 comments:

Ravelry was such a game-changer for a lot of us, I think- it's such an amazing community of knitters, and I really enjoy being inspired with everyone's creativity, and also have met some great offline friends, as well! Good luck with your blog challenge!

I love the fact that you've gone straight to the heart of what makes a group of knitters happy! I'm actually really enjoying reading so many posts about the same topic, and they are all quite different in spite of having the same starting point. (I was worried about writing the same as everyone else too.) Ravelry makes me glad I stumbled into knitting. Or maybe I wouldn't have loved knitting so much without it...

I did exactly the same thing - was too busy quaffing tea at knit club that I took zero pictures! Online communities are truly wonderful, but for learning (and copious amounts of cake), knit group can't be beat for me. :) x